Child Abduction and Senseless Murder.

I have been following the story on the disappearance of six-year old William Yau on 16 January 2013 in the print and online media and am so touched with the public response to find him: from printing missing person pamphlets ,getting the information across and sharing it in the social media to offers of rewards for his safe return.

When I read the news yesterday morning about a body of a young boy of his age being found in the river, I felt the shivers running down my spine. From the rough description I was certain that it was little William. And it seemed my suspicion is right as his parents have identified him at the mortuary by the scar on his forehead and the clothing that he last wore on the evening he disappeared.

Your killer will never live in peace

Sadness overwhelmed me.

The police will need to get to the bottom of this brutal murder. They should not leave any stone unturned. They have to look at all angles to determine whether this is an incidental predatory (paedophiliac) killing or a revenge killing. If it was the former then every parent with young children should be really scared and take measures to protect them and never let their guard down. Random abduction is not uncommon as in the cases of other young children being murdered and a few still missing.

A revenge killing for whatever reasons is a different matter though the unspeakable brutality remains as it involves an innocent child.

Forensic investigations will determine how long the body had been in the river and whether he died before being thrown into the water or through drowning. And whether his head injuries were sustained before or after death. Interesting to note that the body was neither burnt nor buried indicating the killer simply had no time for such bothersome acts. Perhaps throwing into the river was the fastest method of disposal and the most convenient apart from making it hard to perform a post-mortem due to rapid tissue decomposition. This is truly a criminal modus operandi: All essentially designed to cover up a thoroughly organised killer.

It is difficult to identify and arrest the murderer if he were a solitary operator as there are usually no witnesses. The authority may attempt to flush out information by offering rewards to get to the killer. Somewhere, somehow, someone could have seen or known about this killing. Admittedly, The abduction was purely for taking a life. My question is, is this abduction and murder truly random?

All the same, the police should do their utmost to capture this ruthless killer or killers

In the meantime, I join other concerned Malaysians in offering condolences to William Yau’s family.